Connecting Community-Based Collections to the DPLA

La MaMa Archives

Written by La MaMa Archives on Thu, 03/03/2016 – 15:01

Collections held by small repositories that document the histories of marginalized communities are often the most hidden and least accessible of all archival materials. Recent innovations have made it possible for independent and community-based archives to create online digital collections websites using free and open source cataloging software packages such as CollectiveAccess. However, because these repositories are generally under-funded and under-staffed (or staffed by volunteers), they often struggle to find the resources to enable them to connect their collections to national initiatives or metadata aggregators. As a result, even digitized materials from small community-based archives are often hard for researchers and educators to find and use in their work.

“Connecting Community-Based Digital Archives to the DPLA” is designed to support the efforts of independent and community-based archives that seek to make their materials more easily discoverable. The project should explore practical, replicable solutions that small archives can use to reach users through the Digital Public Library of America. It might focus, specifically, on small archives that are already sharing their digital collections on online using the open source collections software CollectiveAccess, or on the Internet Archive.